


From Hell's Heart

by Ariella1941



Series: Champion and Commander [1]
Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age - All Media Types, Dragon Age: Origins
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Companion Piece, Gen, Grief/Mourning, Heavy Angst, Implied/Referenced Torture, POV Third Person
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-10-13
Updated: 2015-10-13
Packaged: 2018-04-26 04:23:58
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,095
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4990096
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ariella1941/pseuds/Ariella1941
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>During the Fifth Blight, the Circle Tower at Lake Calenhad is shattered by betrayal. And in the chaos a young Templar takes the first steps toward his destiny.</p>
            </blockquote>





	From Hell's Heart

**Author's Note:**

> This is a short FYI fic set in the Champion and Commander timeline. It's basically what happened to Cullen between just before he was captured.
> 
> Torture is referenced at the end, though it doesn't get explicit. If I've missed any trigger warnings, please let me know.
> 
> Edit: Changed the Series as it makes more sense.

**_To the last, I grapple with thee; From Hell's heart, I stab at thee; For hate's sake, I spit my last breath at thee._** -Captain Ahab, _Moby Dick_ by Herman Melville 

 

The smoke threatened to clog his lungs, and the scent of blood was thick enough to make him vomit, but Cullen knew he and Liam had to keep moving. The young Templar had no idea how this had happened. One moment, they were on quiet patrol in the upper levels of Kinloch Hold, and in the next they were caught up in a storm of blood magic and death.

“Damn it, Cullen, I’m only slowing you down,” Liam managed through blood flecked lips. “I’m bleeding _inside_. I can feel it.”

The younger Templar kept moving without comment. His whole focus was to get to the next door, the next set of stairs. Both men were aware of the protocol for this type of situation. There wasn’t much time before the doors were barred. _Should we try for one of the rooms instead?_ Cullen asked himself, feeling a strange sense of detachment. _We’d be backing ourselves into a corner, but it would be defensible. Obstructed line of sight, one way in. It’s a possibility._

“Didn’t you hear me, Cullen? I’m ordering you to leave me behind.”

“Apologies, Ser, but no, I’m not leaving you behind,” Cullen told him absently, “and would you please stop talking? You need your strength for other things.”

Cullen hoped his companion would stop for a number of reasons, including the fact that despite Liam being only a year older, he’d taken Cullen under his wing, from the moment of the younger man’s arrival. The two of them were like brothers, and Cullen refused to consider losing him to this madness.

“The next set of stairs are right through that portal,” He told Liam, trying to find some small hope to sustain them. “Maker curse whoever’s brilliant idea it was to put the Circles in towers!”

“Do you hear that?” Liam asked weakly. “The fighting’s stopped?”

“Maybe Greagoir managed to retake the lower levels, you think?” Cullen replied but kept moving. Even as he spoke the words, they didn’t _feel_ right.  
The smell of sulfur and brimstone filled the air as a rage demon materialized in front of them.

“NO!” Liam roared as he pushed away from Cullen and with the last of his strength shaped a blade of lyrium and will that drove straight at the beast. All feeling emptied from Cullen as he advanced on the wounded demon who killed his friend. His attacks rained down with mechanical precision, and the intent not simply to kill, but to destroy. When the creature finally shattered into motes of Fade energy the Templar went to his friend, hoping beyond hope he might be alive. But there was no pulse, no breath.

Cullen wanted to rail at Liam, the Tower mages, at the Maker himself, for allowing this to happen, but that would waste Liam’s sacrifice. He slipped his friend’s eyes closed and stood. Another two floors stood between him and freedom.

“Well, this is unexpected,” said a purring male voice from behind, and as Cullen spun to confront the speaker the world burned white, then went black.

* * *

 

“You are quite the surprise, Ser Cullen,” that same voice told him as he woke. He looked around and found himself behind a sickly pink barrier. Cullen pushed himself to his feet and locked eyes with his tormentor.

“Uldred.”

“Good, the blow didn’t scramble your wits, though you must know you’re the only Templar survivor in the Tower. Or the only one who still has a mind, at least. Your fellows broke so easily,” Uldred said, a jovial smile on his face. “Shoddy training standards, I suppose.”

Cullen said nothing, for he would not be baited by such a creature. Not after the smoke, the screams, the blood, and terror. No, Uldred would find no satisfaction here.

“What? No curiosity why you were spared?” the mage shook his head, “Ah, the model of Templar stoicism, but maybe you should ask your savior why you still live.”

A flicker of movement behind Uldred caught his attention, and a slender young woman in simple mage robes stepped out of the shadows. She was blonde, fair skinned, with blue eyes and a face Cullen never expected to see again.

Solona Amell came to stand beside Uldred, but her eyes were only for Cullen.

“No,” he said, his voice a rasp, “you died at Ostagar with the rest of the Wardens.”

“I survived, Cullen, Uldred and the others found me and brought me back to the Tower,” she told him gently. “I wanted to come back to _you_!”

Her words battered at his resolve. Solona had told him after her Harrowing she felt something for him as well. But Cullen knew, despite his feelings, it could never be.

“Between the Blight and the Civil War, we finally have a way to escape this. We can be together.”

A tide of emotion threatened to overwhelm him, then he looked into eyes that never belonged to anything mortal. They were the right shape and color, but the emotions in them were flat, like painted glass. The things behind the glass were dark, and sick. Endlessly consuming but endlessly unsatisfied.

“Go to the Void, demon,” he told her, “and _rot_ there.”

‘Solona’ clucked her tongue and shook her head. “I told you he wasn’t that naïve, Uldred, but you always underestimate people.”

“Perhaps I do, my dear, perhaps I do,” Uldred replied studying Cullen as if he were some specimen laid out for examination. “Will he suit you?”

Silvery laughter issued from ‘Solona’s’ lips as the desire demon shifted into its true form. “And suit well, I think. Irony of a Templar’s face is rather sweet.”

“Then I leave him to you, Desire” Uldred replied as he smiled at Cullen once more, then walked away.

As soon as Uldred was gone, the thing snorted. “Of course, I wasn’t trying that hard. Pride can be so blind sometimes. I doubt he’d object in the end, but he wanted his little play first.” It cocked its horned head to one side, considering him. “You and I are going to be _intimately_ acquainted soon, Cullen.”

“No,” he told the creature, fixing the faces of the dead in his mind, “we won’t. I defy you, demon, to my last breath if need be.”

Desire smiled and gestured. The pain of thousands of cuts slashing into his flesh drove Cullen to his knees.

“We shall see.”

**Author's Note:**

> I probably won't go any further with this specific subject. It actually came up as I was trying to frame Cullen and Hawke's conversation about the Tower, and how she's his closest friend since Kinloch Hold. So I had to come up with that close friend. If Liam starts talking more, I may just write something else with them, but with two huge fics at once, this may be pushing it. But thanks for reading.


End file.
